This invention relates to dental instruments and particularly to endodontic instruments, systems and procedures for treating a tooth root canal in which the root canal is cleansed of bacteriological materials by physical and acoustic debridgement and flushing with an irrigation solution, particularly the apparatus and equipment for providing irrigation to remove diseased and necrotic tissue.
Endodontic has become an important part of dentistry. Whereas, prior to the common use of endodontic procedures, an abscessed tooth was typically treated only by extraction of the tooth. However since the advancement of endodontics abscessed teeth can be successfully treated to permit retention by a patient for greatly increased health and physiological benefit. Endodontics has been one of the great advancements in modern medicine.
The endodontic preparation of a root canal typically includes opening the root canal through the coronal area of the tooth and thereafter manipulating files and reamers within the root canal to physically remove as much as possible of the pulpal material. This pulpal material is typically infected or necrotic, that is, dead material and any such material that remains in the root canal after the procedure is completed is a source of potential infection. For this reason the proper treatment of a root canal attempts to remove as much of such necrotic pulpal material as is possible. By use of files and reamers, a substantial portion of such pulpal material can be removed however it is virtually impossible in most cases to remove all such material by physical manipulation of tools within the canal. For this reason, in recent times procedures have been developed wherein the root canal is irrigated or flushed with a fluid to remove and/or neutralize organic pulpal material that remains after files and reamers have been employed.
As background information reference may be had to U.S. Pat. No. 4,330,278 that issued May 18, 1982 to Howard Martin, entitled “Endodontic Flow-Through Ultrasonic Instrument Holder Device.” This device shows a system that includes a holder for holding an instrument used for dental work that includes a passageway by which flushing fluid can be injected into a tooth during endodontic procedures. The present invention is an improvement on this basic concept as revealed in this U.S. patent.
Current tip assembly designs for delivering a flushing fluid to a root canal—for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,948,935 that issued Sep. 27, 2005 to John Nusstein, entitled “Ultrasonic Dental Device”—do not effectively transfer the ultrasonic energy to the flushing fluid and prove awkward to use because of the tip assembly configuration and tubing assembly arrangement. The present invention is also an improvement on those tip assembly designs.